Most of Us Are Part NeanderthalSteven Mithen in the New York Review of Books reviews Svante Pääbo’s new book about sequencing the genome of a neanderthal. It’s a classic technology story: Pääbo’s breakthrough occurred only because he made a bet on polymerase chain reaction (PCR) when his academic competitors bet on different technologies. But the insights derived from the sequencing will tell us how humans differ from neanderthals; and in that difference is what makes us uniquely us. —Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher